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The Weekly Wrap

Janes Brian Morrissey  Friday on the Dish, Andrew took down Frum for his Romney endorsement, pointing out that his argument hinged on Romney’s being a liar. He then chided “smug old media” over its handling of Nate Silver’s wager and, in the process of all that, began to come around to New York’s charm. In Sandy coverage, insuring natural disaster grew more expensive, James Kwak made the case for big-government hurricane prediction and a climate group highlighted Sandy in a political ad. Staten Island deteriorated, Caitlin Dickson investigated gas shortages and Ben Cohen noted the sudden importance of pay phones. Dominique Browning then provided tips for growing safer trees, Mary Elizabeth Williams related to amateur photographer risk-taking and the photographer of Jane’s Carousel shared his story. And after Eliza Shapiro reported on anti-NYC marathon backlash and Daniel Gross considered its logistics, the marathon was cancelled. Plus, SoPo was born and FOTD here. The final jobs report before the election delivered relatively good news, though long-term unemployment worsened. Noam Scheiber then evaluated Obama’s Ohio strategy, Dan Savage called Romney’s final pitch a “hostage situation” and Todd Akin rolled out an ad with a rape victim. Jamelle Bouie predicted a left-leaning Senate, women looked set to storm the Senate and Nate Cohn analyzed Romney’s lead in early voting. Reid Cherlin believed young people were still Obama’s base, Ambers predicted GOP post-election spin and Waldman broke down why liberals love Nate Silver. Douthat framed a possible Romney win, Washington’s marijuana legalization initiative seemed likely to pass and new web ads for marriage equality debuted. Plus, Andrew explained how he knew he was conservative. In assorted commentary, Goldblog sounded the alarm on the Netanyahu-Lieberman alliance, the Mormon church excommunicated Mormon historian Michael Quinn and as Mike Riggs spoke sense on the dangers of pot, Kleiman doubted that Big Tobacco wanted a piece of the pot market. The casino industry catered to gambling addicts and Michael Specter wondered about geoengineering. VFYW here and MHB here. The rest of the wrap after the jump:

“After The Ecstasy, The Laundry”

Steve Silberman revisits William J. Craddock’s Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal (1970), now available as an e-book after long being out of print: The Haight could have learned a lot from civilizations that have employed psychoactive botanicals for thousands of years without producing generations of burned-out, spaced-out, used-up former psychonauts. One key difference between … Continue reading “After The Ecstasy, The Laundry”

The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #110

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A reader writes:

Not much to go on this week. A long stretch of beach and homes that look vaguely Western and a wide road. Trees look rather stunted and the area rather dry, so I'll take a stab and say Perth, Australia. But that's all I got.

Another:

OK, this is just a stab in the dark: The 2nd floor northwest corner room of the Mosselbank Bed & Breakfast in Paternoster, South Africa.  Just because.

Another:

This is my first ever communication with the Dish so here it goes. I have never been there, but in two weeks my family will be vacationing at the Outer Banks, North Carolina. More specifically in Duck, just north of Nags Head. I think this resembles that area very much. Am I in the ballpark?

More so than Paternoster. Another:

Sullivan's Island, South Carolina?

Nice try. Another:

This has to be the Jersey Shore or I'll eat my boot. If this is a larger shore town then it's definitely on the "quiet end of town." Actually, rather looks like it's at the end of the island (most shore towns in SJ are islands). It really seems like Ocean City, NJ to me but it could be one of the smaller towns between OC and Sea Isle City. The dark brown house in the photo looks like an exact replica of a house that you pass by out of town in Strathmere on the way to Sea Isle, though I know that this one is not that one. I'm going to go with Ocean City.

Closer. Another:

Those trees, that sand, the boardwalk, and those houses all suggest a Delaware beach to me. Rehoboth seems like a likely candidate.

Quite close. Another nails it:

Super excited – I never play the contest, but knew this one immediately. 

The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #105

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A reader writes:

I knew you would hit us with something hard after a couple of less challenging Views, and you didn’t disappoint.  I feel we are in East Africa, based on the vegetation, metal roof architecture, small cars, and what appears to be a motorcycle graveyard. The construction suggests we must be in a growing capital or larger city, but one with space to move out into its hinterlands.  Dar es Salaam might work – it's booming and might have a wasteland like this on its outskirts – but in my self-allotted 15 minutes of Googling I am positively and absolutely uncertain.

Another writes:

Cedar trees, arid climate, signs of both rubble and rebuilding in the background, person with a full-length blue gown in the second-floor balcony, lots of scooters and subcompacts in the junkyard, illegible sign on the building appears to use a non-Roman script, the only visible license plate is white, skinny, and long.  I'm thinking Lebanon.  Since the window appears to be located in mostly flat terrain on the outskirts of a city, my guess is Haret Hraik, Lebanon, in the coastal plain just to the south of Beirut.

Another:

It looks like Beirut (which I just moved to six days ago), but I can't check on Google Earth for sure because the Internet connection in Lebanon is absolutely horrendous and I'd end up spending a week just to scan a few square kilometers. I'll go out on a limb and say it's in the Fern el-Chabbak area of the city.

Another:

I know it's not Palm Coast (or "Calm Post" as some refer to it), Florida; it's likely somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean or North Africa. BUT! The scenery does evince Palm Coast – and many other Florida municipalities. Half-completed structures? Check. Abandoned automobiles in severe disrepair? Check. Trash? Check. Nobody around? Check. There's even a huge mountain of shit in the distance! (That'd be Daytona Beach.) And yes, I live in that area.

Another is correct:

I'm predicting this is one of the very few weeks where no readers are able to guess this!

Blogging & the Failure of the Legacy Media: College Football Edition

by Alex Massie

Like an over-matched Jack Russell terrier, plucky Jonathan Rauch will neither let go nor go away. I salute the scamp and his rascally determination to snap at any passing ankle!

And, actually, I take his point that new technology such as Kindle singles, apps and whatever comes next will offer writers and readers new and interesting ways to engage with one another. But it's hardly Blogs vs Apps since why can't you have both? Equally, blogging isn't for everyone and if some young writers are depressed by the pressure of being expected to produce X number of posts a day then, well, that's a shame but there are plenty of other things they can do.

Here's the core of JR's argument:

My claim is not that old media are perfect, it's that blogging is a format that makes producing good stuff difficult, which is why there's much less good stuff in the blogosphere.

[…] Every time someone who could have done good science does sloppy science, or does worse journalism instead of better journalism, or mediocre writing instead of fine writing, it's a loss. When resources are scarce—and of course human talent is the most scarce and precious resource of all—it matters if blogging is inducing ADD in many of our best writers and thinkers, or driving talent away altogether.

[…] Some bloggers and snippet-crunchers manage to do good work despite being handicapped by a terrible medium. All credit to them. But too many will never develop beyond blogspeak. The "old" way has its flaws, of course, but it is much, much better at challenging talent to do its best work.

Jonathan seems much more concerned by what one might term producer interests than those of consumers. That's his prerogative and not an unreasonable one either. Still, let me suggest there's at least one culturally-significant area of American life that was failed by the "mainstream" media and been immeasurably improved by the blogosphere. I speak, of course, of college football.

The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #51

A reader writes: Ok, this was hard. I’ve given up after looking for over two hours today. I can’t see any clues, but of course, someone will immediately recognize the middle round tower as being a medieval keep that only <fill in country> has. I think the view is somewhere in Eastern Europe. I searched … Continue reading The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #51